Pruning Flower Baskets and Souls

 My husband bought me the most beautiful hanging flower baskets for Mother’s day.  

They grace our porch with astonishing beauty, lovely fragrance, and abundant flowers,

but they need tended every day.

  About once a week I give them a haircut, as grandma Gladys used to say when she trimmed her flowers.  This haircut, or pruning, needed to be done for several days before I actually got to it. 

By that time, I had to spend about an hour on each basket.

 

 Very carefully, I lifted the vining trailers to prune dead plant underneath.  

I used scissors to cut back  each and every wilted flower. 

This , grandma taught me, would help the plant to continue to flower nicely all summer. 

There were so many spent blossoms that the process took much longer than I had anticipated. 

If only I had tended the plants earlier, each pruning would not take so long and be so tedious.

 

 

When I went to bed that night, I had a niggling feeling of something not being right. 

A slight discontentedness that was agitating me. 

I just couldn’t put my finger on the source of the irritant.  So, I prayed and sat quietly, waiting.

  Just as I was nodding off to lala land, I hear a whisper in my mind….

”You need a thorough pruning, it has been too long.” 

Sleep claimed my fatigued body for the night, but when I awoke, there was that thought right away,

like the tapping of the woodpecker in the tree outside my window.
“OK Lord, what is it?  I feel like something isn’t right, and I am ready to deal with it.”

I AM THE VINE AND YOU ARE THE  BRANCH.

Quietly and gently, I knew and understood that I had been critical and disrespectful of others,

maybe not out loud, but certainly inside. 

Like a smear of grease across my chest,

my attitude was creating a harshness in my soul that was starting to effect my behavior.

 

 EVERY BRANCH THAT DOES NOT BEAR FRUIT HE TAKES AWAY AND PURGES IT THAT IT MAY BRING FORTH MORE FRUIT.

Garbage.

Dead branches. 

I had garbage I needed to take out. 

Branches that needed to be cut away. 

The blessed thing is that the Lord faithfully forgives and renews 

every time we come before him with a repentant heart. 

Like my flower baskets, the pruning was good for my soul. 

The death in me had been cut away, causing me to be refreshed, renewed, 

and the foul smell of a bad attitude no longer lingered ,

but a fresh scent filled my heart and caused me to sing.

NOW YE ARE CLEAN THROUGH THE WORDS I HAVE SPOKEN UNTO THEE.

 The baskets emerged looking better than ever,

vibrant, full of lovely flowers with a beautiful aroma for others to enjoy. 

And they will as long as they have a good daily watering with careful frequent pruning.

ABIDE IN ME AND I IN YOU FOR WITHOUT ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING.

I reached out for my Bible and settled in for a good watering.